Fire to the Rain
by Fluitare
Summary: "Hi, Harry," she says, as if none of the past month has ever happened, and, some ways, it hasn't, because their lives just keep going in circles, and if you end at the beginning, it's almost like it didn't happen at all. Post-Hogwarts AU.


**Fire to the Rain**

He's the one holding her up, Ginny knows. But sometimes she wonders what it'd be like to feel strong and independant and self-sufficient. And then she remembers that she alone has never been enough, not even for herself.

She's just sitting at the scrubbed pine table, so like the one at home - no, not her home any more - her parents' house, twisting the gold band on the fourth finger of her left hand.

Eventually, Ginny decides that Harry isn't going to take her to dinner tonight, and he'll be upset if she hasn't already made food by the time he arrives, even though he won't show it except through a dark flash in his green eyes and perhaps a more sullen expression then usual, so she gets up and makes something. She isn't quite sure what she cooks, because the movements have become automatic.

* * *

Ginny is sitting at the kitchen table once more when the door opens, and Harry walks in.

"Hi, Harry," she says, a little nervously.

He grunts, and drops a briefcase on the floor by the coatrack.

"I made lamb stew," she says, having discerned that, at least, from the smell while she sat and waited for him to come, and she hopes he likes it. She doesn't remember any more.

"Hn," he says.

She rises, and kisses his cheek lightly.

Dinner is silent except for her awkward attempts at conversation, to which he replies in monosyllables. She ought to know better, and she does, but sometimes the silence is so terrifying that she has to say something, anything, even if he doesn't care.

He eats mechanically, and refuses anything beyond the bowl of stew at his chair; she thinks he would have refused that too if it hadn't already been dished out for him.

"I was going to make apple cake for afters," Ginny offers hesitantly.

"Treacle tart," Harry says, the first two consecutive words he's spoken all evening.

Ginny can't stand treacle tart, and Harry knows it, but she says, "Yes, Harry," anyway, because it's what she's always done.

They eat the tart, or rather he eats and she watches, in silence.

So she's surprised when he says, "Periwinkle all right for the bridesmaids?"

It isn't only that he knows the word 'periwinkle', but that he's actually speaking to her. A sudden flare of hope rises in her, only to be coldly extinguished by his next words. "Hermione suggested it."

"I don't think it would look good on them," she says doubtfully.

"Hermione is beautiful in blue," Harry says shortly. The way he says it makes her wonder if he thinks she's beautiful without the blue. "Luna and Cho are Ravenclaws - blue is their color."

"But they aren't the bridesmaids," Ginny says, confused.

His eyes narrow in that way that means he's not happy with her. "Who is?"

"Lissie Creevey," she says immediately. Lissie is her best friend, and she's always known Lissie would be her Maid of Honor. "Elaine Midgen, and Ariel Prewitt."

"Don't know them," he says.

"They're my friends," she bursts out. "And I don't know any of the people you want me to choose."

"Don't be silly," he says. "'Course you know them."

"Cho Chang is your ex-girlfriend!" Ginny explodes, half-hoping he'll say 'Not that Cho, of course I'd never be so callous as to make my old flame the bridesmaid at my wedding, it's another girl named Cho.'

But he doesn't.

"We're friends," he says icily.

"Aren't the bridesmaids supposed to be my friends?" she says.

He shoots her another cold look. Ginny wants to say 'Yes, Harry,' simply because it's what she's always done, but this is important to her like none of their petty squabbles. At least, she tells herself that they were petty.

"Fine," he says unexpectedly. "Luna can give the speech. And Cho will understand if I say you don't want her there." She winces at his implication that Cho will be understanding even if Ginny isn't. Then he speaks again - funny how it always seems to be Hermione who always dashes her hopes. "Two of your friends can be bridesmaids, long as 'Mione is Maid of Honor."

"But I want Lissie to be my Maid of Honor," she says.

He glares. "Hermione is my best girl friend." Ginny can't quite tell if he said girl friend or girlfriend, and she has a sneaking suspicion he doesn't want her to know.

"Your friend," she says. "Not mine." That isn't fair to Hermione, of course, because she is Ginny's friend, but she's also devoted to Harry and Ron, and really, together they leave no room for Ginny. Hermione is a friend, but not a close one.

"She is your friend," Harry says, with exasperating slowness, as if explaining something to a particularly slow child, "and she's my friend, and she got us to go together."

"Not really," Ginny starts, but he cuts her off.

"And this way Ron - best man - will be with 'Mione."

She has always, always said, 'Yes, Harry,' but Ginny has also always known, from when she was eleven and met Lissie on the Hogwarts Express, that Lissie would someday be at her wedding. Two of her most ingrained ideas are warring with each other, and she doesn't know what to say.

"Can I think about it?" she finally says. "I mean, we haven't even decided on a date for the wedding - there's no rush."

"Fine," he grunts, and they return to the uneasy silence.

At seven o'clock precisely, almost (almost) as if he had been sitting at the table watching the clock, Harry stands, says, "Good-bye," and goes to the door.

"See you next Tuesday," Ginny says, like she always does. Harry picks up his briefcase and steps outside. A moment after the door shuts, she hears the crack of Apparition, and he's gone.

The first thing she does is flick her wand, and the radios all over the house turn on. Each is set to a different talk channel, at a low volume, and the softly overlapping voices are enough to keep the silence at bay. They're never off except when Harry is here, because Ginny knows he doesn't like them. Harry belongs to the silence, and Ginny doesn't. She wonders if they'll argue over the wireless when they're married.

Another wave of her wand, and the perfect circle of treacle tart, missing only one neat wedge, is encased in Mrs. Peabody's Ever-Fresh Plasticware. She'll serve it to Harry one slice at a time, Tuesday by Tuesday.


End file.
